Speakers

Please meet our speakers, 100% of pure swiftness!

Robert C. Martin

Uncle Bob Consulting LLC

Robert C. Martin (Uncle Bob) has been a programmer since 1970. He is the Master Craftsman at 8th Light inc, a Chicago based Software Consulting firm. Co-founder of cleancoders.com , offering on-line video training for software developers. And founder of Uncle Bob Consulting LLC, offering software consulting, training, and skill development services to major corporations worldwide. Mr. Martin has published dozens of articles in various trade journals, and is a regular speaker at international conferences and trade shows. He is also the creator of the acclaimed educational video series at cleancoders.com. Mr. Martin has authored and edited many books including: Designing Object Oriented C++ Applications using the Booch Method Patterns Langauages of Program Design 3 More C++ Gems Extreme Programming in Practice Agile Software Development: Principles, Patterns, and Practices. UML for Java Programmers Clean Code The Clean Coder. A leader in the industry of software development, Mr. Martin served three years as the editor-in-chief of the C++ Report, and he served as the first chairman of the Agile Alliance.

Diana Rodriguez

VoiceThread

Diana Rodriguez is a Full Stack Developer/DevOps & Google Developer Expert. With 18 years' experience and a strong background in back end and infrastructure, Diana likes to bring together the best of both worlds, spreading DevOps culture. She's super enthusiastic about everything to encourage people to start a career in development and a fan of female devs and DevOps. In her spare time she likes to play videogames, also a huge fan of sports, Diana is a rugby player and taekwondo black belt.

Ish Shabazz

Ish has been an independent iOS App Developer since 2010. He works full time as a network engineer and spends practically every moment outside of that developing apps or working on something app-related. His apps have been featured by Apple, Starbucks, App Advice, iMore, and Daring Fireball. Ish’s story was featured in the documentary App: The Human Story. He is currently working on Capsicum, a daily planner and notebook.

Sean Olszewski

Pivotal

Sean Olszewski is the author of Muter, a mutation testing tool for Swift code. Currently an engineering practice lead at Pivotal, he focuses on the practice of test driven development and the design of effective test suites in his day-to-day work. Previously, he has worked on code bases for intelligent hydroponic gardens, connected vehicles, and audio synthesizers. He can be found at meet ups in the Boston area, or organizing his meetup Learn Swift Boston.

David Okun

IBM

David Okun is a mobile software developer turned developer advocate for IBM in Austin, Texas. David has been primarily focused on iOS mobile software, but is also interested in web technology such as Node.js. He's shared over 35 projects with the community on GitHub. David's favorite thing to do is to teach, and he loves an opportunity to clearly explain how something works, and walk someone through it.

Rob Napier

Rob is co-author of iOS Programming Pushing the Limits, and maintainer of the RNCryptor encryption format. Before coming to Cocoa, he made his living sneaking into Chinese facilities in broad daylight. Today, he shapes music over Bluetooth for Logitech, explores old ideas in new languages, and tries to figure out how all of this applies to Swift.

Lou Franco

Trello

Lou Franco is on the Trello iOS Team at Atlassian and is a contributor to Smashing Magazine. In his spare time, he runs, volunteers as a Big Brother, and writes about iOS on App-o-Mat. He lives with his wife in Northampton, MA.

Miriam Friedel

Skafos.ai

Dr. Miriam Friedel has spent over fifteen years in scientific and technical fields spanning theoretical physics, software engineering, transportation, neuroscience, and machine learning. She currently leads the data science team at Skafos, a start up in Charlottesville, VA. Skafos.ai is the ML platform for iOS developers, offering push-button deployment to the edge. Prior to her current role, Miriam was a Director and Senior Scientist at Elder Research, where she lead the commercial business unit and helped clients in a range of industries achieve ROI from machine learning. Her unique background helps her bridge the gap from technical details to strategic insights, increasing collaboration across disparate functional teams. Miriam received her ScB in physics from Brown University and her PhD in Physics from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is a co-author on over fifteen peer reviewed articles, and outside of work, spends as much time as possible practicing yoga and being with her two daughters.

Neem Serra

Slalom

Neem Serra is a mobile developer at Slalom in St. Louis. She teaches and mentors at a variety of non-profit organizations such as Software Carpentry. As the lead of the Google Women Techmakers group in St. Louis, she started the St. Louis Techies Project to highlight the diversity of technical people in St. Louis. Neem loves to bake, read comics, and host craft nights.

Todd Burner

Google

Todd Burner is a Developer Advocate on the Firebase team. He previously worked on other teams in Google Cloud Platform, at Twitter, and a few mobile-first startups. He spends his time helping developers get up and running with open source and Google projects on GitHub and Stack Overflow, as well as meeting developers in person across the world.

James Graham

James Graham is a software engineer who deeply enjoys starting and building businesses from scratch. He received a Thiel Fellowship last year for his work on Caffei.net, which is the fastest way to establish a TLS connection between iOS and your api (your commerce app can make a lot more money by becoming way faster!). Used by the largest freelancer marketplace, a large-Boston based travel company, and other commerce companies around the world, Caffeine improves security by making PFS and certificate pinning automatic and free, among others. Recently he has become interested in empowering and better tooling the "small guys" that all SaaS has so far ignored: senior citizens, immigrants, and people who Just Don't Know by starting the Wallace Murry Phone Co. Wallace Murry is the only wireless phone provider based in MA. Wallace Murry doesn't sell your data to advertisers like AT&T et al, puts on events/sessions at low-income community centers that promote digital literacy (how to use a mouse, keyboard, email, google maps, etc), won't sell you an unlimited data plan if you don't need it, and is staffed with people from your local community who pick up the phone instantly if you call with any questions related to your phone (or beyond!).

Meng To

Design+Code

Meng To is the author of Design+Code. Meng started off his career as a self-taught designer from Montreal and eventually traveled around the world for 2 years as his US VISA was denied. During his travels, he wrote a book which now has 40,000 readers. Today, he focuses on helping designers and developers master design and coding via design-focused video tutorials, articles, talks, and workshops.

Daniel Steinberg

Dim Sum Thinking

Daniel presents iPhone, Cocoa, and Swift training and consults through his company Dim Sum Thinking. He has written apps for the iPhone and the iPad since the SDKs first appeared and has written programs for the Mac all the way back to System 7. You can also find his best-selling books “A Swift Kickstart” and “Dear Elena” on the Editors Cut website. When he's not coding or talking about coding for the Mac, the iPhone, and the iPad he's probably cooking or hanging out with friends.

Jeff Kelley

Detroit Labs

Jeff Kelley is a developer at Detroit Labs, where he builds apps in Swift but still has a soft spot for Objective-C. Author of Developing Apps for Apple Watch and Learn Cocoa Touch for iOS, he’s been working with iOS since its infancy in 2008. Jeff is passionate about building usable apps, the open-source community around Apple platforms, and will talk your ear off about electric cars and clean energy. Jeff loves raising his two kids and two dogs, Detroit, and organizing the Motor City CocoaHeads group.

Kaitlin Mahar

MongoDB

Kaitlin is a software engineer living in NYC. She works at MongoDB, where she leads development of the official MongoDB driver for Swift. Outside of work she enjoys doing crossword puzzles, playing with her cats, and trying all of the amazing food and drinks NYC has to offer.

Anne Cahalan

Detroit Labs

Anne is an iOS developer Detroit Labs, where she is constantly delighted by the niftiness of Swift. Passionate about clean code, craft cocktails, and nice yarn, she dreams of an elegantly-designed app that pairs cocktails with knitting patterns. She is contractually required to mention her three-legged cat, Wobbles.

FAQ

Robert C. Martin (Uncle Bob) has been a programmer since 1970. He is the Master Craftsman at 8th Light inc, a Chicago based Software Consulting firm. Co-founder of cleancoders.com , offering on-line video training for software developers. And founder of Uncle Bob Consulting LLC, offering software consulting, training, and skill development services to major corporations worldwide.

Mr. Martin has published dozens of articles in various trade journals, and is a regular speaker at international conferences and trade shows. He is also the creator of the acclaimed educational video series at cleancoders.com.

A leader in the industry of software development, Mr. Martin served three years as the editor-in-chief of the C++ Report, and he served as the first chairman of the Agile Alliance.

Diana Rodriguez Chief DevOps Architect, VoiceThread

Diana Rodriguez is a Full Stack Developer/DevOps & Google Developer Expert. With 18 years’ experience and a strong background in back end and infrastructure, Diana likes to bring together the best of both worlds, spreading DevOps culture. She’s super enthusiastic about everything to encourage people to start a career in development and a fan of female devs and DevOps. In her spare time she likes to play videogames, also a huge fan of sports, Diana is a rugby player and taekwondo black belt.

Ish Shabazz iOS Developer

Ish has been an independent iOS App Developer since 2010. He works full time as a network engineer and spends practically every moment outside of that developing apps or working on something app-related. His apps have been featured by Apple, Starbucks, App Advice, iMore, and Daring Fireball. Ish’s story was featured in the documentary App: The Human Story. He is currently working on Capsicum, a daily planner and notebook.

Sean Olszewski Engineering Practice Lead, Pivotal

Sean Olszewski is the author of Muter, a mutation testing tool for Swift code. Currently an engineering practice lead at Pivotal, he focuses on the practice of test driven development and the design of effective test suites in his day-to-day work. Previously, he has worked on code bases for intelligent hydroponic gardens, connected vehicles, and audio synthesizers. He can be found at meet ups in the Boston area, or organizing his meetup Learn Swift Boston.

David Okun Developer Advocate, IBM

David Okun is a mobile software developer turned developer advocate for IBM in Austin, Texas. David has been primarily focused on iOS mobile software, but is also interested in web technology such as Node.js. He’s shared over 35 projects with the community on GitHub. David’s favorite thing to do is to teach, and he loves an opportunity to clearly explain how something works, and walk someone through it.

Rob Napier

Rob is co-author of iOS Programming Pushing the Limits, and maintainer of the RNCryptor encryption format. Before coming to Cocoa, he made his living sneaking into Chinese facilities in broad daylight. Today, he shapes music over Bluetooth for Logitech, explores old ideas in new languages, and tries to figure out how all of this applies to Swift.

Lou Franco

Lou Franco is on the Trello iOS Team at Atlassian and is a contributor to Smashing Magazine. In his spare time, he runs, volunteers as a Big Brother, and writes about iOS on App-o-Mat. He lives with his wife in Northampton, MA.

Miriam Friedel Head of Data Science, Skafos.ai

Dr. Miriam Friedel has spent over fifteen years in scientific and technical fields spanning theoretical physics, software engineering, transportation, neuroscience, and machine learning. She currently leads the data science team at Skafos, a start up in Charlottesville, VA. Skafos.ai is the ML platform for iOS developers, offering push-button deployment to the edge. Prior to her current role, Miriam was a Director and Senior Scientist at Elder Research, where she lead the commercial business unit and helped clients in a range of industries achieve ROI from machine learning. Her unique background helps her bridge the gap from technical details to strategic insights, increasing collaboration across disparate functional teams.

Miriam received her ScB in physics from Brown University and her PhD in Physics from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is a co-author on over fifteen peer reviewed articles, and outside of work, spends as much time as possible practicing yoga and being with her two daughters.

Neem Serra

Neem Serra is a mobile developer at Slalom in St. Louis. She teaches and mentors at a variety of non-profit organizations such as Software Carpentry. As the lead of the Google Women Techmakers group in St. Louis, she started the St. Louis Techies Project to highlight the diversity of technical people in St. Louis. Neem loves to bake, read comics, and host craft nights.

Todd Burner

Todd Burner is a Developer Advocate on the Firebase team. He previously worked on other teams in Google Cloud Platform, at Twitter, and a few mobile-first startups. He spends his time helping developers get up and running with open source and Google projects on GitHub and Stack Overflow, as well as meeting developers in person across the world.

James Graham

James Graham is a software engineer who deeply enjoys starting and building businesses from scratch. He received a Thiel Fellowship last year for his work on Caffei.net, which is the fastest way to establish a TLS connection between iOS and your api (your commerce app can make a lot more money by becoming way faster!). Used by the largest freelancer marketplace, a large-Boston based travel company, and other commerce companies around the world, Caffeine improves security by making PFS and certificate pinning automatic and free, among others.

Recently he has become interested in empowering and better tooling the “small guys” that all SaaS has so far ignored: senior citizens, immigrants, and people who Just Don’t Know by starting the Wallace Murry Phone Co. Wallace Murry is the only wireless phone provider based in MA. Wallace Murry doesn’t sell your data to advertisers like AT&T et al, puts on events/sessions at low-income community centers that promote digital literacy (how to use a mouse, keyboard, email, google maps, etc), won’t sell you an unlimited data plan if you don’t need it, and is staffed with people from your local community who pick up the phone instantly if you call with any questions related to your phone (or beyond!).

Meng To Founder, Design+Code

Meng To is the author of Design+Code. Meng started off his career as a self-taught designer from Montreal and eventually traveled around the world for 2 years as his US VISA was denied. During his travels, he wrote a book which now has 40,000 readers. Today, he focuses on helping designers and developers master design and coding via design-focused video tutorials, articles, talks, and workshops.

Daniel Steinberg Storyteller, Dim Sum Thinking

Daniel presents iPhone, Cocoa, and Swift training and consults through his company Dim Sum Thinking. He has written apps for the iPhone and the iPad since the SDKs first appeared and has written programs for the Mac all the way back to System 7. You can also find his best-selling books “A Swift Kickstart” and “Dear Elena” on the Editors Cut website. When he’s not coding or talking about coding for the Mac, the iPhone, and the iPad he’s probably cooking or hanging out with friends.

Jeff Kelley

Jeff Kelley is a developer at Detroit Labs, where he builds apps in Swift but still has a soft spot for Objective-C. Author of Developing Apps for Apple Watch and Learn Cocoa Touch for iOS, he’s been working with iOS since its infancy in 2008. Jeff is passionate about building usable apps, the open-source community around Apple platforms, and will talk your ear off about electric cars and clean energy. Jeff loves raising his two kids and two dogs, Detroit, and organizing the Motor City CocoaHeads group.

Kaitlin Mahar Software Engineer, MongoDB

Kaitlin is a software engineer living in NYC. She works at MongoDB, where she leads development of the official MongoDB driver for Swift. Outside of work she enjoys doing crossword puzzles, playing with her cats, and trying all of the amazing food and drinks NYC has to offer.

Anne Cahalan

Anne is an iOS developer Detroit Labs, where she is constantly delighted by the niftiness of Swift. Passionate about clean code, craft cocktails, and nice yarn, she dreams of an elegantly-designed app that pairs cocktails with knitting patterns. She is contractually required to mention her three-legged cat, Wobbles.